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You may lose customers, but I also expect you to gain customers from the LGBT community.
Law or not, you will be sued in a very public way.
If you have employees who want to quit, let them quit. It is up to you to set the tone of tolerance or intolerance. Assuming there is no law against it, what will your response be when your employees go to HR and say they are going to quit if you don't fire the black guy, the Jew, the Mexican, etc.?
I feel that starting to fire people left and right is a bit tyrannical. Not to mention the costs of recruitment and training.
I'm just on the fence regarding how much backlash his firing would create. We are talking about Ohio (should have mentioned that) not NY or LA. I'm from NY and now in FLA. People are so close minded here sometimes that this might just blow over. I suspect Ohio is the same.
Now that I'm writing this, I see how wrong it is to fire this guy.
Let all the religious bigots and those stultifying right wing zealots quit in self righteous indignation and there will be scores of applicants ready to take their place who won't give a rat's patootie whether Jean is John or John is about to be Jean while those who quit will be standing in the unemployment line. Karma.
I feel that starting to fire people left and right is a bit tyrannical. Not to mention the costs of recruitment and training.
I'm just on the fence regarding how much backlash his firing would create. We are talking about Ohio (should have mentioned that) not NY or LA. I'm from NY and now in FLA. People are so close minded here sometimes that this might just blow over. I suspect Ohio is the same.
Now that I'm writing this, I see how wrong it is to fire this guy.
If you're in Columbus, the backlash would be pretty big, methinks. I don't know much about the rest of the state, but Columbus struck me as rather gay-friendly when I was there, and what is friendly to gays is usually also friendly to transgenders. Could just be the people I know from there and the places we went when I visited, though.
And Florida? Don't get me started on that state. I have nothing positive to say about it. "Close-minded" doesn't even begin to describe how I see a lot of US-born people there. Bunch of half-senile ex-NYers who do nothing but complain about anyone less than half a century old.
Again, not sure exactly how this fits in to your "assigment", but something else to consider (and I think someone else touched on this) was what would the firing lead to? What if they complained about working with black people? Or Jews? I think you would definitely have a "opening the flood gates" issue.
Thanks. I see how this can become a slippery slope if he was terminated.
Yzette, LOL re: Florida. I try not to pay attention
Do you guys actually think that people that are threatening to quit actually would? I'm not sure I find their threats credible. But, I need to come with a way to mitigate them...hmm...
I also have to think for the employee. If people refuse to work with her after the surgery, it will be difficult for her. I could threaten to fire anyone who makes comments, but then there is a risk of it becoming he said she said.
If you want to make it completely a business decision, I would compare the relative worth of the employee doing the sex change and the others threatening to quit. If one is much more valuable than the other, the decision should be clear.
If you want to make it completely a business decision, I would compare the relative worth of the employee doing the sex change and the others threatening to quit. If one is much more valuable than the other, the decision should be clear.
That is way too simplistic. Would you also lose customers? Gain customers? Would there be other employees who would quit because they didn't agree with the decision? Could you get sued and how much would that cost? Would you be setting up an atmosphere where the employees felt entitled to make other threats?
Adhom, yes, I agree with you. My thinking is very black and white, so from a business standpoint it's about costs. But, there is always the human element and that's what I need to address. I have to mitigate the reaction from all sides - figure out a way to deal with it in the best way.
You cannot fire someone because of their gender, and you cannot fire someone because of their religious beliefs or lack of them. Therefore firing a person because their actions offend other employees' religious beliefs is illegal.
You CAN fire someone if their activities either at work or outside of work are disruptive to the productivity or morale of the workplace. But in this case, it is the other employees whose activities that are disruptive, not the transgendered employee. It is their displeasure with the situation and their subsequent complaining and threats that are wasting time and making collaboration and workflow difficult.
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